C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5

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Arnold takes κατῆλθεν to mean that Cleon had descended from the λόφος καρτερός towards the city with a part of his forces. No such movement however is mentioned. Poppo approves of ἀνῆλθεν (sc. from Eion), which Classen adopts. This reading has some support from the fact that some inferior manuscripts have ἀπῆλθεν. Krüger suggests ἦλθεν.

καὶ αὐτός—see note on ch. 6, 11. The words do not necessarily imply a corresponding descent from anywhere on the part of the Athenians, but simply show that Brasidas by coming down made a counter-movement on his part.

δεδιώς—‘mistrusting’, ‘having misgivings about’; cf. ch. 61, 22, δείσαντες. So μέμφομαι is sometimes used, e.g. Hdt. i. 77, μεμφθεὶς κατὰ τὸ πλῆθος τὸ ἑωυτοῦ στράτευμα.

ὑποδεεστέρους—sc. τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ, a sense easily supplied; possibly however ὑποδεέστερος should be read. ἀντίπαλα, according to the scholiast, agrees with ἑκάτερα τὰ στρατεύματα. Poppo and Classen however take it to mean ‘things were fairly matched’, comparmg iv. 117, 2, ἀντίπαλα καταστήσαντος: vii. 13, 2, ἐς ἀντίπαλα καθεστήκαμεν. This neuter phraseology is common, e.g. ii. 56, 1 ἑτοῖμα ἦ<*>: iii. 88, 1, ἀδύνατα ἦν, etc. ἀξιώματι—‘quality’ (Jowett).

καθαρόν—the idea of καθαρός is ‘clear’ or ‘cleared’. As applied to troops it means either (1) ‘picked men’, clear of inefficients, or (2) according to the scholiast=αὐτῶν τῶν πολιτῶν, ‘of pure Athenian blood’, with no admixture of aliens. In Hdt. i. 211, we have τοῦ καθαροῦ, στρατοῦ, ‘the effective force’, contrasted with τοῦ ἀχρηί<*>ου: and in Hdt. iv. 135, τὸ καθαρὸν τοῦ στρατοῦ is contrasted with sick troops left behind. Classen also quotes from Plut. Aem. Paul. ch. 6, αὐτῶν τῶν Μακεδόνων ἀρετῇ καὶ η:λικίᾳ τὸ καθαρω:τατον. These passages are in favour of (1).

Λημνίων καὶ Ἰμβρίων—cf. iv. 28, 4, where we find Lemnians and Imbrians chosen by Cleon for his expedition to Pylos. ‘Lemnos had been taken and colonized by Miltiades a few years before the battle of Marathon (Hdt. vi. 140). Imbros was, I suspect, colonized also by him about the same time’ (Arnold on vii. 57, 2).

ἐπιθησόμενος—to be connected with τέχνῃ: the participle is joined to the verb without ὡς, as in ii. 91, 1, παρεσκευάζοντο ἀμυνούμενοι, etc.

ἀναγκαίαν—‘make-shift’, such as ἀνάγκη compelled him to use: i. 61, 2, ξυμμαχία ἀναγκαία: vi. 37, 2, ἀναγκαία παρασκευή.

οὐκ ἂν ἡγει_το κ.τ.λ—‘(thinking that) he would be less likely to succeed than if he came upon them before there had been time to observe him, and when as yet they had no real grounds for their contempt of him’ (Jowett). οὐ μᾶλλον= ἦσσον, the usual litotes. αὐτῶν is the objective genitive, referring to τοὺς μεθ̓ ἑαυτοῦ, and dependent on the active words προόψεως and καταφρονήσεως. In the last clause μή is a redundant negation, the negative form of the sentence being already determined by ἄνευ.

ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος—the preposition denotes the source or ground of the contempt which the enemy would feel, if they saw Brasidas' actual force; cf. i. 91, 6, ἀπὸ ἀντιπάλου παρασκευῆς, ‘starting from, i.e. bached by equal defences’: iv. 18, 2 α:πὸ τῶν ἀεὶ υ:παρχόντων γνώμῃ σφαλέντες. Somewhat similar in origin are various adverbial phrases with ἀπό, c.g. in the following chapter, line 14. Classen and others restrict the force of ἄνευ to the first clause, and make καταφρονήσεως dependent on μὴ ἀπό, taking the whole clause as equivalent to εἰ μὴ τοῦ ὄντος καταφρονήσειαν ‘if the enemy should not despise their real weakness’. But, not to insist on the co-relation of the nouns coupled by τε and καί, τὸ ὄν is a strange expression for ‘their real strength’, though ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος is a reasonable adverbial phrase. Moreover such a construction would refer to the main subject of the sentence, and would imply contempt felt by Brasidas for the enemy, a meaning which makes nonsense of the passage.